Breastfeeding on pot? Mom says doctors made her sign a waiver before nursing

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PORTLAND, Ore. -- A mother in Portland, Ore. says doctors told her she shouldn't breastfeed her new baby because she uses medical marijuana.

Crystal Cain’s daughter Karrisma was born eight weeks premature at Oregon Health and Science University hospital on Wednesday. The baby needed an incubator to survive, but is now doing better, KATU reported.

Crystal planned on breastfeeding. Until, she says, doctors told her that her marijuana use could be dangerous for the baby.

Crystal has been smoking marijuana during pregnancy -- on her midwife's advice, she says -- for anxiety and nausea.

She says she’s read that THC can’t be transmitted to a baby through breastmilk.

But the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against it.

OHSU, recognizing that they couldn’t control Crystal once she left, asked her to sign a waiver acknowledging that they’d warned her not to nurse while using pot.

“We do understand the benefits of mothers' milk,” the hospital said. “We also don't want to be caught in a situation where a mother continues to use and says that we never gave her information on it, never informed about the risks, and so it's really a way of documenting that the parents acknowledge the risks. And we can't stop her from using it.”